Performance Issues for Amazon S3

Amazon's S3 (Simple Storage Service) experienced lengthy performance problems Friday, and customers are starting to get cranky. S3 is the storage element of Amazon's new utility infrastructure offerings, and has been gaining a following among many Web 2.0 companies, especially online photo sharing sites. But if offers no service level agreement (SLA) which typically provides an uptime guarantee and terms on which users can be refunded in the event of an outage. This isn't the first outage for S3, and it's leaving some customers unhappy with Amazon's response.

"We're clearly still in the very early days of utility computing, but reliability is an issue that will have to be addressed sooner or later," notes blogger Charlie Wood at Moonwatcher. "Ultimately, it comes down to accountability. Bad things will happen. The question is how the vendor will respond."